The Name of the Game
by FREAKSHOW1
Summary: How do the AIs of Reach pass the time? Why, a nice of cards, of course.


**A/N: C'mon, It's 7/7/7. How could we not write a a Halo fic? This is bad, we know, but we had to do **_**something.**_** Actually, bad is is a better summary than this story deserves, it's damned awful. But, y'know, 7/7/7 only comes along how many times in our lifetime? Deja, Wellsley, Beowulf and Araquiel are all characters from the book series.**

**Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction by fans. It's fanfiction. Neither the author nor the editor make any claims of ownership to Halo, as they rightly fear the good and soul-impaired lawyers of Microsoft.**

**----**

_**The Name of the Game**_

**----**

Somewhere, deep in the UNSC's CASTLE Base on the planet Reach, five Artificial Intelligence constructs were sitting down at a table.

Well, strictly speaking, there was no such thing as a table in the cyberspace AIs inhabited. Or chairs. Or bodies to sit in those chairs, for that matter. But, for the your sake, and mine, dear reader, we shall imagine that these five AIs were in fact physical beings, sitting in physical chairs, at a physical table.

Their reason for this seemingly unusual gathering? Poker.

It had started out when Dr. Halsey had been running routine tests on her latest "project," Cortana, testing her mathematics subroutines. The good doctor had introduced her to the game to see how she dealt with calculations involving multiple variables. The construct had taken an almost instant liking to the game, and had mentioned it in passing to Beowulf, the UNSC's Security AI on Reach. Beowulf had told the teacher Deja about the card game, who had gone on to tell the Defensive construct Wellsley, who had included it in one of his long-winded rants about something he'd done as the Duke of Wellington. Araquiel, the personal watchdog for Colonel James Ackerson, had been the unfortunate recipient of said rant, and things had developed from there.

It had begun as a simple contest of who had the better "poker face," an interesting contest for people who technically lacked faces of any kind. And it had come as a massive shock to Cortana and Araquiel, the so-called "Smart AIs" when the quiet, "dumb" Beowulf had wiped them out. One thing lead to another, and the poker game became a weekly occurance. Every saturday, the AIs would drop what they were doing, leave their tasks in the non-hands of some capable subroutines, and play a few rounds.

Currently, Cortana and Wellsley were staring each other down from across the table, the other three players having folded minutes before.

"This trickery won't work on me, you know," Wellsley intoned, "Once, during the Battle of Talavera, I--"

"Enough about the damn Duke already!" Araquiel shouted, a sentiment whcih the other players at the table silently agreed with. The pompous AI look offended at the watchdog's outburst, but quickly returned his eyes to his hand, and then to the violet woman across from him.

"You," he declared, "Are bluffing," He tossed his hand to the table, "Four of a kind!"

Cortana, for her part, only smiled wider, and revealed her hand.

A straight flush.

Wellsley covered his face with his hands and gave a groan completely unbecoming of his dignified appearance, as Cortana raked in the chips. Araquiel clutched his abdomen and roared with laughter, Deja placed a hand over her mouth to stifle her own laughs, and even Beowulf, his expression hidden by his hood, displayed his amusement through the slight shaking of his shoulders.

"Well, looks like I win this one," Cortana smirked as Wellsley gave a pitiful little moan, still incredulous about his defeat, "I'd love to stick around, but Dr. Halsey's got me running a simulation to test the base's new counter-intrusion software. I'm going to try to crack it in under seven seconds this time." Cortana's form shimmered and disappeared.

"I must go as well," Beowulf said is his slow monotone, "Even a simulated breach of security on my watch is unacceptable." He, too, swirled away in a dark cloud

"Practice maneuvers with the Third Fleet," Wellsley added miserably, before winking out with a bell-chime.

With that, Deja and Araquiel were left alone in the cyberspace. The white-haired greek and the flame-eyed watchdog stared at one another for a moment before shugging, and the teacher began to shuffle the deck once again.


End file.
